Burning in the Dark
by msjgatsby
Summary: Mike fails. He needs Paige's forgiveness.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Yeah, I wrote this quickly in an hour. I was listening to Cosmic Love by Florence and the Machine while I wrote it. I wish I could just give my plot bunnies to an actual writer who took the time to write, but I'm a bit of a control freak.

Mike lay in the dust grasping his side. Looking down he could see the blood flowing down into the sand from the bullet wound in his side. He had failed and this was the end. There was no backup coming. No way he could reach safety. This was it.

Through the pain Mike tried to focus. An eerie sense of acceptance fell over him. He was going to die. He was going to die and Sid was going to get away. He'd descended so far into hell since he'd come back to Graceland. _Graceland. The land of Grace._ He thought grimly.

He thought it would all be worth it once he caught Solano. Saved Lina. Ended Sid. Won Paige's heart. None of that was going to happen now. There was no more time.

Mike figured he only had a little while left. A few minutes of life. An hour at most. He could sit and play over in his mind where it all went wrong. He could dwell on every little detail. What he might have done differently. He could torture himself that way, and he probably deserved it. To lie here drowning in blood and memories.

He could still try to think of a way to escape this fate. To rally. To do a little good in the time left. But he knew that was hopeless. This was the end and there was only one thing he wanted to do with the time he had left on earth.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. Every movement hurts, but he grits his teeth through the pain because this is important. With shaking fingers he dials, leaving blood smeared prints across the keypad.

The voice on the other end of the phone doesn't even say hello. She sounds worried and panicked, and Mike's brain is struggling to stay conscious, let alone keep up with her frantic words.

"Mike? Mike? What's going on? Where are you? I can't get a hold of anyone! Charlie, Briggs, Johnny… No one is picking up their phones! What is going on? Has Briggs made the arrest yet? Is Amber in custody? Where are Johnny and Jakes?" Paige's voice demands over the line before he can even get a word in.

Mike squeezed his eyes shut, unable to answer her, as she inadvertently lists all the ways he'd failed. He tried to ignore the pain her words sent through his heart and just focus on her voice. She was alive. She was safe. She was the one thing Mike didn't regret.

"Paige." Mike can only whisper her name. His voice cracks. God he doesn't want her last memories of him to be of him crying.

"Mike?" Paige hears how weak Mike's voice sounds and she gets an inexplicable feeling of dread in her stomach. She suddenly knows something is very, very wrong. "Mike what's wrong? Are you ok?"

"I just… I just had to tell you, and I'm sure you already know, I just… I need you to hear it. From me." Mike's voice is shaking and dammit he didn't want to cry.

_Lina…_ Paige thinks to herself. For all these months she's wanted him to tell her he burned Lina's body, the way she needed to hear him confess, she suddenly doesn't want him to. Even though she knows Lina's gone and Mike lied, she suddenly wants his lies more than the truth.

"Mike. Don't do this. Don't say it." Paige has a sudden feeling of panic. She wants Mike to stop talking. She doesn't know what's going on, but she knows in her gut her world is about to plunge into darkness.

"I have to… I need you to know… Dammit… Didn't want to tell you this way..." Mike's breathing is labored and his words are slurred. He closes his eyes tight, one hand pressed to his wound the other holding his phone tightly, "Paige, I love you."

"Mike, where are you? What's wrong?" Paige needs to find him. Something is wrong, and she's feeling helpless. He wouldn't do this unless… no. It can't be that. Mike Warren is not allowed to die.

"Shhh… It's done. Sid. He got away… Paige, I'm so sorry. I let you down. I never wanted- Paige, I know you must hate me after what I've done, but I need you to do something for me."

"No. It's not done. Stop it. Mike, just tell me where you are!" Paige begs him through the phone.

"I need you to lie to me." Mike gasps, his words coming slow and sluggishly, as if life is draining from his body with the blood. "You're so good Paige. I always believe everything you say. Tell me everything's going to be alright. Tell me I'm one of the good guys, and the good guys always win. Tell me… Tell me you love me too. I want it to be the last thing I hear before I die. Even if I don't deserve it. Even if it's a lie. Please. Paige."

There is a moment of silence over the phone that stretches across the country between them.

"No." Paige says firmly. Mike bites his lip in a pain greater than anything a bullet could cause, as he hears the line go dead and falls over to his side, bleeding onto the sand. Willing death to come claim him faster.


	2. Chapter 2

Mike wakes up in pain. He feels foggy. The clean white room comes into focus and he looks around, unsure of how he got here. He shouldn't be here. He should be dead in the desert. Or in hell. He looks around him, trying to get his bearings. The mask on his face pumping oxygen to his lungs and the IV machine next to him tells him he's in a hospital somewhere.

He feels a sense of Deja Vu. He needs to stop making it a habit of waking up in hospitals. The last time he did though… Paige.

Mike strains to sit up to look around the room for her, but groans out in pain from the movement. He hears footsteps rushing over to his bed. He looks up hopefully, but it's Briggs. Mike hopefully looks past him for any sight of the blonde, but there's no one else.

"Hey Mikey Mike." Briggs says softly, "How you feeling man?"

"What happened?" Mike groans.

"You got shot. Barely made it this time. Stop scaring us man." Briggs admonishes lightly, before his face falls, "Mike, I'm sorry. You went down there because I changed plans and-"

"How's Charlie?" Mike interrupts him before he can apologize. It's not his fault. Mike would have done the same thing if Paige had been the one captured.

"She's safe. Looks a hell of a lot better than you." Briggs says, feeling a little more relaxed and less guilty now that it looked like Mike was going to live.

"And the baby? Johnny?" Mike tries to remember through the pain and fog of drugs.

"Good. Good. Yeah, everyone's ok. You got the worst of it, but now that you're awake the Doctor's say you're going to be ok." Briggs assures him.

"Did you get him? Sid?" Mike asks hopefully.

"No. I'm sorry man. I know you wanted that victory, but he ran for it. No one's seen him." Briggs says, trying to catch the younger agent up on everything he's missed.

"How long have I been out?" Mike asks.

"About a week. You were in pretty rough shape. Glad to have you back."

"Where am I?" Mike wets his dry lips, trying to gather as much information as possible.

"Back in the good old US of A in the hospital. You had to be life flighted out." Briggs explains. "Gave us all one hell of a scare."

"Is there anyone… Anyone else been here to visit?" Mike asks hopefully. He needs to see her. Last time he got stabbed she was here. Where is she?

"Yeah, Johnny and I have been swapping off who's sitting at your bedside and Charlie's. She's been put on bedrest for the baby and hates it. We need someone there twenty-four-seven to make sure she stays in bed." Briggs says conversationally but Mike hears the unspoken words behind it. Paige hasn't been here to visit Mike.

"Ok. Thanks." Mike says, trying not to let his disappointment show, "You don't have to wait with me though. Go home to Charlie."

"Nah, I don't mind. She's been a little cranky. Hormones and all." Briggs says good naturedly, but Mike knows he's just being polite.

"Go home Briggs. I'm fine. Just tired. I'm just going to go back to sleep." Mike says. He appreciates the show of friendship, but right now Charlie needs him more than Mike.

"Ok. I'll be back tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be able to take you home soon." Briggs says, comfortingly.

"Thanks." Mike mumbles sleepily. He drifts into a restless medicated sleep and hopes when he opens his eyes again, Paige will be there.


	3. Chapter 3

Mike is lying weakly on the couch at Graceland. The ride back to the house from the hospital had taken most of his limited energy and he needs to wait before he attempts the steps. Johnny and Briggs sit on the couch, joking and laughing like it's old times. Charlie is upstairs napping, and Jakes is out on a new case.

The door opens and Mike turns his head weakly to see Paige walk into the foyer of Graceland. It's the first time he's seen her since she'd given him a chance. Asked him to explain how he felt. Admitted she was irrational in asking him to leave her. Since she'd given him a glimmer of hope. Since he said the wrong thing to her. Again. Since she basically told him she wished he was dead. Since he almost granted her wish.

Paige walks into the hall and freezes when she sees Mike, staring at him with a guilty look on her face. Mike stares back at her. Seeing her, he feels so many conflicting emotions at once he worries they may burst out his injured side in a fresh flow of blood.

"Hey Johnny-boy, I think I hear Charlie calling from upstairs. Come give me a hand." Briggs says casually, standing up from the couch to head upstairs.

"Man I don't hear anything. Go see what she wants! I just sat down..." Johnny whines.

"Johnny!" Briggs barks, "Upstairs."

Paige stands silently in the foyer, looking down at her feet. Mike tries to keep himself from staring at her but his eyes drink her in. As mad as he is at her, he never thought he'd see her again, and he still can't resist the tugging in his heart. Her blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She is wearing tight black pants, a loose gray t-shirt and a black jacket. Her sunglasses keep whatever emotions are held in her eyes a mystery from Mike.

The silence becomes even heavier as they are left alone together.

"You're alive." She finally breaks the silence, whispering the words as though she still can't believe it.

"Yep. Sorry to disappoint you." Mike grumbles. She would have known this if she'd bothered to come visit him in the hospital. Three days of drifting in and out of consciousness after he'd woken up and she'd never came to see him. Johnny and Briggs had been there, hell even Jakes, but the one person he needed to see had abandoned him.

Her face hardens and she crosses her arms across her chest. He recognizes this. It's the start of another fight. He starts to stand up to walk over to her, wanting them to be on the same level if they were going to do this, but his side bursts with pain at the effort. He slumps back onto the couch and she's immediately at his side.

She carefully lays him back down, as he breathes through the pain, hating himself for showing so much weakness in front of her. He can't put up any fight as she examines him, first the fading bruises on his eye, then down his neck, her fingers lifting his t shirt to reveal where he's heaving for breath through the pain. His eyes are squeezed shut with pain as she gently runs her fingertips over his side.

He finally opens his eyes to see her up close, her eyes trained on the bandage trying to assess the damage. Now that she's so close he notices her knuckles are bloody. He reaches out and takes her hand from his side, bringing it closer to his face, so he can examine her fresh injuries. He sees the fading scar from where she got stabbed. Back when they were together and happy. God that feels like ages ago. He looks up, and notices her lip has a small cut on it. His hands trace her face and remove her sunglasses where he sees a fading black eye similar to his.

She looks back at him and he wants to ask what happened to her. Words seem to get him in trouble though. He's touching her now, something he's pretty sure he hasn't done since he "bought" her, and it's a spell he refuses to break. His fingers trace the bruises on her face and her eyes low to his shirt. She makes a gentle tugging motion at the hem and he raises his arms allowing her to remove the shirt from his body. He looks over at her jacket and she allows him to help her shrug it off her shoulders.

It's like they're physically disarming each other with each piece of clothing. Stripping down their defenses. Exposing themselves to each other. Mike doesn't even care that they're in the middle of the living room. He will let her strip him to the bone if she'll forgive him.

"Still working, huh?" Mike finally says wryly as his fingers come back down to her bruised bloody knuckles. That was Paige. No matter what happened, she kept on working. He would have hoped she'd at least have taken some time off to come see him in the hospital, but apparently he didn't rank that highly on her priorities. Not anymore.

"Cleaning up some loose ends." She mutters absentmindedly, her eyes and fingers still examining his bandaged side. "This bleeding isn't too bad for a GSW. Don't make any sudden movements. I'll go get a fresh bandage-"

"No. No stay here. I want to talk to you." Mike takes a hold of her hands and pulls her back down. He wants to figure out once and for all where they stand. He was prepared for her to have written him out of her life, but the way she's suddenly at his side, caring for his wound, letting him touch her, it's confusing. If there was even the slightest hope she still cared he needed that.

Or maybe she still didn't care, she just wasn't going to let him bleed out in the living room.

"Mike…" She shifts uncomfortably on the sofa not making eye contact, "Let's just get you bandaged up and then get some rest. I just got home and I'm tired. I need to go take a shower and-"

"I must have really hurt you." Mike's voice takes on a bitter tone. He cannot believe she's this cold towards him. He'd always seen Paige as being so warm, having such a huge heart. It was one of the things he loved most about her. But with him she was almost inhuman. "I mean, you can't even sit here for one second with me? I almost died. I told you I loved you, with my last breath, and you can't even visit me in the hospital?"

"There was nothing I could have done-" Paige starts to shift uncomfortably on the sofa, looking down at her hands. Clearly wanting to be anywhere but here with him.

"You could have been there! You could have pretended to care whether I lived or died!" Mike's voice is shaking with rage and hurt.

"I was busy." She says weakly.

"Busy?! I'm sorry, so while I was fighting for my life, when you hung up on me-" Mike starts to rant at her but is cut off suddenly as she lunges forward at him.

She grabs him by the neck and roughly crushes her lips to his. Mike takes only a moment to adjust before his hands come to the back of her head, pressing his lips firmly back to hers the two of them kissing like they are fighting a war. Mike ignores the pain in his side as he tries to consume her. They kiss and she crawls into his lap like she's trying to physically crawl inside him. The pressure of her ribs pressing against his side nearly makes him pass out, but he just pulls her closer. He pulls away gasping for air, burying his head in her hair inhaling deeply.

Suddenly Paige pulls away with a panicked look in her eyes, and stares at him, her eyes terrified.

"I have to go." She stammers, and then turns and flees up the stairs.

Mike sits defeated on the couch, unable to follow her. He finally resigns himself to the truth that she's not coming back. He lies back down on the couch, his side throbbing and drifts into an uneasy sleep. He's haunted by dreams of Lina's death. He can still smell the thick smoke of her burning body.


	4. Chapter 4

"Unbelievable..." Mike wakes up groggily to find Johnny standing over him. "You two are animals."

"What are you talking about Johnny?" Mike mumbles sleepily.

"You two. Keep your clothes on. At least until you get into your room." Johnny grins. Mike realizes he's still lying shirtless on the couch.

"I can't get it back on without help." Mike groans. He is groggy, in pain, and frustrated. Basically not in the mood for whatever Johnny is insinuating. "Besides, the fabric is irritating."

"That Paige's jacket?" Johnny asks suggestively raising his eyebrows.

Mike looks down at the black jacket he'd fallen asleep on top of guiltily.

"Animals." Johnny laughs.

"Can you just help me to my bed?"

"You sure? P's bed is closer." Johnny grins.

"My bed." Mike says firmly. Johnny shrugs and helps Mike limp up the stairs and towards his room. They walk past Paige's empty room and Mike sighs.

"How was she? When I was in the hospital?" Mike asks as they limp past Paige's door.

"What do you mean?" Johnny asks, helping Mike move slowly along.

"Was she worried?" Mike asks lamely.

"We were all worried Mike."

"I know, it's just..." Mike doesn't know how to word what he's asking. He hopes she was a wreck. Maybe that she couldn't come see him in the hospital because she was having an emotional breakdown over him being injured. He knows it's Paige, and that's unlikely, but he can't figure her out. He just can't accept things are over between them. Especially after that kiss.

"Dude she wasn't even here. She'd call in every now and then to get status reports, but up until yesterday I hadn't seen her since Jake's and I left for Mexico with those marked bills." Johnny shrugs.

"Where was she?" Mike asks.

"I don't know." Johnny mutters, "I'm not her boyfriend."

"So you just let her go without backup, without any idea where she was?" Mike starts to get angry. After what happened last time with Jakes, why wouldn't someone provide her support?

"Hey, she made it back safe!" Johnny says defensively, "Things have been crazy around here man. You've been in the hospital. We've been trying to find Sid. Preparing for Solano's trial. Charlie's on bed rest. I'm trying to find Lucia. We still don't know where half the marked bills went."

"God, I have missed so much." Mike groans, realizing that the entire world has changed in the week he's been unconscious. "Can you bring me those reports? I have a lot I need to catch up on."

"Sure man." "Yo and Charlie's having cravings for Hector's, so Briggs is doing a run. You need anything?"

"No. I'm fine." Mike says distractedly, "Just the files."

"Dude, you gotta eat. You're skin and bones here." Johnny says, poking one of Mike's uninjured ribs.

"Fine. Maybe just a taco or something." Mike mumbles, "But I really need those files."

"Yes Sir!" Johnny salutes as he leaves Mike on his bed.

Mike lays back in the bed he thought he'd never be in again and listens to the shower running out in the hall. He lays back and wonders how long Paige'll need to be in there to clean him off of her.


	5. Chapter 5

Mike is lying in bed, trying to read the file on what he's missed, but his injury makes it impossible to sit up straight comfortably.

He groans in frustration as the file slides off his lap and onto the floor. He can't get out of bed to lean down to get it.

"Need help?" Mike looks up to see Paige standing in his doorway. Her wet hair is pulled back into a loose braid, and she's wearing a fresh white t-shirt and grey sweats.

"What do you want?" Mike growls. Why is she always the one to catch him in these moments of weakness?

She ignores his question and walks into his room. She picks up the scattered papers, putting them back in the file. He reaches to take it, but she sets it on his desk out of his reach.

"I need that." Mike mumbles.

"You need to sleep." She says protectively.

"What I need is for you to give me my file back. I've got to catch up. Every day I'm stuck in bed is another day Sid gets farther and farther away." Mike argues. He doesn't have the energy to deal with her anymore, but he can't sleep either. Whenever he sleeps, he thinks of her. Work is his only solace.

"Mike you need to rest." Paige says quietly.

"Give me my file." Mike demands.

"No." She says simply.

"Fine." Mike starts to force his body out of bed to walk over to retrieve the file himself. Paige sees what he's trying to do and walks over to the bed quickly pushing him back down. She throws one leg over his hip, pinning him easily to the bed with her weight as she straddles him.

Mike stares up at her. His mind flashes back to months ago, hell a lifetimes ago, when she was last like this. In his bed, straddling his hips with her blonde hair falling forward, naked in the moonlight rocking her body against his. The two of them laughing and moaning in pleasure, trying to keep from being discovered. His breath catches as he stares up at her now angrily. Those moments are gone, and he's not sure what this is anymore.

"You need to leave." He says darkly. He can't be like this with her. Now it's just a cruel reminder of what he's lost.

"You said you wanted to talk." She settles her weight onto his hips, and looks down at him curiously. It's clear she's not planning on going anywhere, and is not finding the current position near as arousing or uncomfortable as Mike is.

"No." Mike snaps shortly with her. His hands are on her hips which are resting on his lap. They still fit together so perfectly, and with any other situation, Mike would be thrilled to have her there, but he can't keep having her bring him close just to push him away.

"No?" Paige asks.

"Yeah, you should know that word. It was almost the last thing you ever said to me!" Mike snaps at her cruelly. He still remembers that moment. Him begging her to love him. Her denying him in his most desperate moment. Hanging up on him like he was nothing.

"What are you talking about?" Paige asks, looking genuinely confused.

"I told you I loved you and I was dying, and I begged you to tell me you loved me too and even then you couldn't even care enough to-" Mike can feel angry tears welling up in his eyes, and dammit why does he keep crying in front of her? What the hell medications did they put him on that were making him so weepy.

"I didn't say 'no' I didn't love you, I said 'no' you weren't going to die." Paige yells stubbornly back at him, "I had a GPS coordination on your phone by that point, I had to hang up so I could call the paramedics to go lifeflight you to a hospital."

"You…" This news hits Mike like a truck. He lays there under her and stares while his brain rewrites history. The life flight out. The transfer to the American Hospital. That was all her. Mike is staring at her in a whole new light as he whispers in comprehension, "You saved me…"

"Yeah, well… Briggs was saving Charlie and Jakes was saving Johnny. Someone had to save your dumb ass." She mutters bashfully, looking away from his intense stare. He brings his hands up to her face, forcing her to look at him.

"Briggs said you didn't come, to the hospital. I thought you were angry with me. I thought-"

"I was. I am." Paige corrects herself, "But that's all the more reason why you're not allowed to die. Not like this."

"Do you forgive me?"

"I don't think I can." She slides off to the side of him and curls up beside him, burying her head in the crook of his arm. "I don't think I can forgive myself either."

"So where are we?" Mike asks, his heart thudding in his chest as his fingers come up to trace her shoulder.

"Here. In the dark." She says quietly.

"It'll be dawn soon." Mike says hopefully, but he knows what she's saying.

"I don't know if it will for us. What happened to us Mike?" Paige whispers.

"I just, I fell." Mike thinks back to all that he's done. He's tortured, he's lied, he's burned. He is so far from who he thought he would be. "Briggs says, at the end all that matters is that you add up the damage you've done with the other guy and you're in the black. I've got to catch Sid Paige, if I've got a hope of that happening."

Paige lays with her head buried in his chest thinking about his words in silence.

"I just need to get a new plan. Regroup. I promise Paige. I'm going to try to get back into the light." Mike wants her to believe him so badly.

"He knows you're after him. He's not coming back." Paige says. "Let it go."

"Paige, I know this guy. Sid's not the type to walk away a failure. Besides, he's got a wife and kid here. There's no way he'd run without making arrangements for them. If I can put them under 24 hour surveillance. Maybe we can flip Solano." Mike starts to think about any way he can fix that, his mind working a thousand miles a minute. Desperately looking for anything he might have missed. He hates starting from scratch.

"You need to sleep." She says looking down at his wound, her fingernails lightly tracing his side.

"You do too." Mike looks down at the blonde woman cuddled up next to his side in surprise. He watches the way her fingers trace over the bare skin of his stomach, and he wonders what she's thinking. What changed to bring her back here.

"I'm trying. You're keeping me awake." She murmers, and Mike realizes with a shock that she's sleeping next to him tonight.

"I thought after Lina…" Mike is afraid to even mention the girl's name. Afraid of breaking this rare spell of intimacy. "After what happened, we were done."

"When you first came to Graceland you were so good. So innocent. I was becoming so jaded with all the lying and the selfish jerks I saw out on the streets every day. The guys in the bars who would say anything to get me into bed. You were different, and maybe I lifted you up onto a pedestal a bit too high, and that just made it hurt so much more when you fell." Paige says softly.

"I wanted to be perfect. For you." Mike says, her words hurting him. He so wanted to be the man Paige saw him as. It killed him he'd lost her trust. That now, even after he knew she knew what he'd done how he couldn't admit it to her.

"Maybe it wasn't that you fell. Maybe it was just that I didn't fall too." Paige murmers.

"What do you mean?" Mike asks nervously. Something about her veiled words makes him nervous.

"I couldn't understand. How you could want something so badly you would sacrifice part of yourself. The part I thought I loved." Paige said, and he's worried about how she's talking in past tense. He should just tell her. She all but knew. She definitely suspected. He just needed to man up and tell her, even if it guaranteed that he would lose her forever. "You were in the dark all alone and I couldn't understand how you got there. How someone so good could fall so far."

"I have to tell you…" Mike's voice is shaking.

"Lina's gone." She finishes sadly for him.

"Paige, I'm so sorry. I tried. I swear, I tried so hard. I just failed. I keep failing. I can't fail again. That's why I have to find Sid. I have to."

"Mike you can't spend the rest of your life searching for Sid. The same way I can't spend my life searching for Lena." Paige says, her voice holding a strange sense of melancholy.

"Paige what did you do?" She can't be saying what he thinks she's saying.

"You're not the only one who can burn a body, Mike."

Mike's stomach turns. He suddenly understands. Why Paige didn't come see him in the hospital. Where she was. She was in Mexico. Sid was never coming back because Paige had hunted him down and murdered him.

This entire time, Mike had been hoping for redemption. For her to forgive him and wash away the sins of his past. That maybe, if he just tried hard enough, if he sacrificed enough he could bring himself back up out of the darkness. Back to her. He couldn't do that though. So instead Paige had thrown herself into the darkness with him.

"He almost took you from me." Her voice has a vengeful tone Mike has never heard before. "We spend so much time with such horrible people. It was foolish to think we could hide in that world and stay innocent ourselves."

"Paige what are you saying?" Mike already knows, but he's not sure how he feels about it. She was the good one.

"That I'm in the darkness with you."


End file.
